


An End to the Beginning of All Wars

by hyperbolic_jester



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-07-04 02:57:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15832341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperbolic_jester/pseuds/hyperbolic_jester
Summary: Alicia and Al have made their way across the country to the gates of Alexandria.  They have returned a gravely wounded Morgan home, with the hope that they, too, can carve out a life for themselves.   They make new friends and start to heal the wounds from the world's end and before.  Just as they are finally settling in, a new menace in the form of the whisperers takes aim at Alexandria and threatens all they hold dear.This story was revised to be split into two after a significant time jump.  This revision will continue chapter 4 and address the Whisperer's conflictThis will most likely explore some of Althea's backstory as a war journalist, which, in this story, includes stints in some truly frightening conflicts and the resulting PTSD that she experiences.AU (what with season 9 time jump):  Abraham dies from the arrow, like in the comics, instead of Denise, so she is very much alive when our heroes show up at Alexandria.  Also, Al and Alicia choose to take Morgan up on his offer to take him to Alexandria.





	1. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: I intend to discuss some heavy themes, including colonialism, genocide, and PTSD. Please take extra care of yourselves, and know that some of the content in this chapter and upcoming chapters may be triggering. Additionally, I am trying to be careful to properly represent a serious conflict. I will try to cite sources and encourage further reading on the conflict, because it is important. I decided to change the country from a real one to one I made up because I don't want to exploit someone else's tragedy to explore a serious topic. I think that it is possible to look at themes and ideas using fictional people and countries in order to avoid appropriation.

Chapter 1

Alicia was born the second child of a second child of a second child. Her mother may have been raised as the oldest after her aunt died in a tragic childhood accident, but Madison had still felt the sting of being second best. Generationally speaking, Alicia had no hope of ever being first. Now that the world had all gone to the biters, this was her time. Or it would be, at any rate, if they could actually go for more than a day without a major catastrophe. 

The sharpened gun barrel in her lap made soft, hollow pings as she drummed her fingers on its cold surface.Alicia leaned her head back against the internal wall of the armored vehicle as the road rumbled underneath massive, aggressively treaded tires. She shifted in her seat to get more comfortable. 

She glanced up at the back of Al’s head, as the other woman silently navigated the decaying roads in the rain. She listened idly to the droplets on the roof of the Humvee. Her gaze moved to Morgan, laid out on the floor of the vehicle. The unconscious man let slip a moan every so often, when Al went over a particularly nasty bump. He had been injured during an attempted robbery the day before, and while he was still very much alive, he was currently weaving in and out of consciousness.

She wished she knew more about how to help him. It appeared as though a stray bullet had caught him somewhere in his spine, with no way of knowing how deep. Al and Alicia had managed to contain the bleeding, but he would need medical attention soon. With any luck, they should hit Alexandria around midday tomorrow. One more night out on the road, and they would be among new friends. She refused to consider otherwise.

Shifting so that she was kneeling next to him, she checked him over as best she knew how. She had made a concentrated effort to learn as much as she could from June, knowing that the small group would be splitting off. She wondered idly if the small party had managed to make it back to John’s cabin.

Thinking of the others made her heart ache for Strand and Luciana. The two of them had elected to remain at the mansion in Texas, drinking the days away with a lifetimes worth of wine and liquor and listening to a vast collection of records. The idea of facing new humans after a long ride had proven too much for them. She caressed a gold chain around her neck that Strand had given her from the mansion, a token to remember them. Luciana and Strand were the last ties she had to her family, and now they were hundreds of miles behind them.

“I’m about ready for a pit stop,” Alicia said as she broke the silence.

“Can you wait a few minutes for the rain to let up?”

Alicia thought for a minute. “Yep.”

“Well,” Al replied, “how about we try in fifteen?”

“Sounds good.”

Alicia returned to her seat. She kept trying to think of ways to start a conversation, but nothing seemed right. It had been like that since Texas: three near strangers biding time together in a small space, fighting against their own introversion. She wracked her brain for what she might have done before the apocalypse rendered their world shades of brown, ash, and olive drab. Suddenly, a small smile broke out on her face.

“I spy….. something… grey,” Alicia said.

She could hear Al pause for a moment, and then snort.

“You have got to be kidding me, Clark.”

“Wrong guess.”

“I’m not doing this,” Al grumbled.

“Look, if this silence gets any heavier, we’re going to need a forklift.”

“Can’t handle a little peace and quiet?” Al shot back.

“We’ve been on the road for nearly a week,” Alicia said. “We’ve sailed past peace and quiet sometime last Friday, arriving definitively at boredom and stagnation. So you’ve got two options: have a real conversation with me, or I play a one sided game of I, Spy. I’ll give you a moment to make up your mind.”

“You’re not even near a window!”

“Exactly. Visualize your levels of exasperation, mile after mile.”

Al fell silent. The truck hit and crushed a large tree branch with a twiggy crunch. Alicia rubbed her shins, the thick jean material providing soothing friction. Alicia sighed and rolled her eyes. Just as Alicia was about to continue describing the object, Al interrupted.

“I was home visiting my folks from assignment in the Ukraine when the outbreak happened. I spent six years in Litzozemli, that country carved out of the southeastern portion of Ukraine and its mirror from Russia, getting to know the people, hearing their stories. I spoke with the villagers, lower level bureaucrats, and even a few politicians, who told me of the atrocities carried out by Leonid Zvira's henchmen: the Zlonakonyakh," Al rambled, seeming to have lost total control of the tight grip she had on self disclosure. "I remember one young mother, from the small village of Krykhitnyy in the southeast, watched helplessly as they snatched her baby from her arms and dashed the child against the walls of her hovel until he was dead. The only reason she survived is that her attackers got distracted by her neighbors who were trying to fight back with an old hunting rifle they'd gotten through back alley connections. She fled with her remaining children to the Ukraine. Nobody knows what happened to the neighbors.

“I’m so steeped in stories I don’t have much else to say anymore. It’s all I know how to do…”

Alicia listened with rapt attention. She didn't think that there was much left in the world that could truly horrify her, and yet, here was something truly monstrous. It was one thing to hear about it in a friend’s school project, but quite another to hear it spoken of by someone who had lived it. She wondered idly if Al’s footage had been part of the documentary she’d watched as part of helping her friend prepare.

Al slowly eased on the vehicle’s brake, and said, “Here looks like a good place to stop.”

The truck pulled to a stop and both women grabbed their weapons. Alicia stepped out and glanced around. They were alone on a decaying stretch of road with nothing but cracked asphalt for miles in either direction. They were on the edge of a wetland to their right, as evidenced by the boggy air and smell of swamp gasses. Sludgy water pressed against the cattails. To the left the vegetation aggressively seized everything that wasn’t paved. The swift breeze rustled the leaves and brush. However, there did not appear to be any infected.

She jumped down from the back of the truck and landed squarely on her feet. Al came up next to Alicia, peering at the swamp behind her. Alicia nodded, acknowledging that this was, indeed, a quality place to stop for a bit.

“Watch my back?” Alicia tossed over her shoulder.

“Yep.”

Alicia disappeared into the bushes. During this time, she pondered what Al said. She’d always assumed that Al was like Morgan, antisocial by choice, rather than someone craving companionship without the ability to develop it. In that moment, she realized what she had to do. Alicia squirted a small blob of hand sanitizer from her pocket into her palm and made her way back to the road. She stood next to Al and nodded her head back the way she had come. Al disappeared into the brush.

Alicia remained sharp while she guarded what would become their campsite for the evening. Her ears strained for the crashing of vegetation, accompanied by the gurgling groans of the dead. The only things filling her ears were the hum of legions of mosquitos and the occasional bird call from the swamp.

“Hey Al,” Alicia called out.

“Yeah?” Al replied.

“This place actually looks pretty good for the night. Maybe we can set up camp now and push through the rest of the way tomorrow?” 

Al returned quickly, poking her head out of the five-foot tall ferns. She took in their surroundings. She stepped out all the way into the road and craned her neck in either direction, just to be sure. She put her hands on her hips, squinting in contemplation.

“You make a fair point,” Al said.

Alicia took one last glance around and set herself to foraging for firewood. Unfortunately, the wetlands close proximity meant that most of the wood was wormy and rotten. It was a good thing they kept a small stockpile in a corner of the vehicle on Morgan’s insistence. She quickly checked him over before unloading a small pile of wood onto the middle of the concrete.

In no time, Alicia and Al had made camp. They relaxed in camp chairs around the fire. Alicia maneuvered her chair’s broken footrest out of her way with her calves and reclined back. Al nestled a can of baked beans amongst the coals on the edge of the small blaze. Alicia fussed with a small box of Raisin Bran that would be their desert.

“Hey Al,” Alicia started. “I’m ready. I’m ready to tell my story. But only to you.”

Al was in the midst of poking the hotter logs away from the canned beans, and her head snapped up. She blinked at Alicia in surprise for a moment before speaking. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but it’s ok. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I didn’t… That’s not why I said what I said back in the truck. You’re story is yours and I’m not going to steal it.”

Al appeared to be shocked at what was coming out of her own mouth. She looked furtively around the campsite and then settled back to poke at the logs and beans. She snuffled and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeved forearm. Alicia saw tears pricking the corner of her eyes.

“No, I mean it,” Alicia said. “I’m not ready, but I won’t ever be, and I do think it’s time.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Al sat stock still for a moment, thinking about what, Alicia was not sure. Then, she rose and went into the truck to retrieve her gear. Alicia shifted forward in her chair and rested her forearms on her knees. Al returned with her camera. She sat back in her chair and changed out the cassette. She checked her camera over, ensuring that there was enough charge and all the bits and pieces were working. Hunched over the display, she made the final adjustments to the focus.

“Your name,” Al asked softly.

“Alicia Clark”

“Where are you from?”

“Lost Angeles.”

“How-” Al started, but Alicia pushed forward.

“I had a future. I was going to UC Berkley. I was going to be an author in San Francisco with a shitty apartment and a cat. I had a boyfriend, who wasn’t likely to be part of that future, but I loved him anyway. I had a family…” Alicia trailed off. She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. Al continued silently recording. 

“I had a family. My childhood was dysfunctional, but whose wasn’t? My family loved me, and that’s more than a lot of people can say. My brother was a junkie and my parents spent all of their time bailing him out. My father killed himself via car crash, and my mom quickly replaced him with Travis. I was such an ass to Travis. It’s like he was a symbol of everything that was wrong with my family, but the reality is that he made all of my dance recitals, which is more than I can say for either of my bios. Of course, I didn’t realize any of that until he was falling out of that damned helicopter with a bullet in his belly.”

“You were a dancer?” Al asked in surprise.

“Yeah, ballet, mostly, but I really loved modern. I was hoping I’d be good enough to get a minor.”

“I bet you were really good,” Al said softly. Alicia looked up at Al. She was no longer looking into her camera, and was focused on Alicia instead. Her eyes brimmed with emotion, and her expression gentler than Alicia had ever seen it. “Have you danced since?”

A bubble of laughter escaped Alicia’s lips. She hadn’t thought about dancing since Jake Otto had tried to help her believe that things like art and poetry would matter again, years ago, at the ranch. Her heart constricted as an image of the last time he smiled at her flashed behind her eyes as she shut them. It had been so very long since she’d even dreamed of dancing, let alone thought of it while awake.

Suddenly, impulse took her and she placed both of her hands on the ground. She rolled over her right shoulder continuing the movement fluidly until she was standing. She raised her right leg up and turned in an Attitude Duvant. She lost herself in the moment, dancing to the rhythm of the bullfrogs, crickets, and spring peepers. Before long, she found herself crouching on the edge of the fire, out of breath, but sated for the first time she can remember. She looked up and felt joy and grief wrestling in her belly.

An ache settled in Alicia’s back, between her shoulder blades; her groin muscles complained from lack of use. She grinned silently for the first time since the stadium. There was something almost scandalous about a lighthearted moment in world crushed by defeat. Alicia looked at Al, whose grip on her camera had slacked, with a dazed expression of intrigue settled on her face. The corners of her usually grim mouth were turned up and tears streaked a trail down her face.

Suddenly, Alicia noticed movement over Al’s shoulder in the dying light. She strained her ears for moans escaping from rotting mouths

“Biter!” Alicia yelled. “Behind you!”

Al whirled in enough time to get her arms up before the infected was upon her. He pushed her over on her back, and she used her forearm against his Adam’s apple to keep it at bay. His mouth snapped with deadly jaws, fractions of an inch from her face. Long strands of greasy hair dangled in her face, one getting into her mouth. Al gagged powerfully and tried to roll him, but he was strong.

Alicia quickly pulled out her sentry knife and connected with its temple. She heard more commotion as bodies moved through swampy water and emerged from the cattails.

Al scrambled to her feet, camera still in hand. Al drew her buck knife and ran to shut the rear of the vehicle. A biter closed in on her and she kicked its belly, before plunging her knife forward through its cheek. Alicia drew her pistol and put a few rounds into the front lines of the dead, about half her shots finding home in their skulls. Al bolted around the corner of the truck. As Alicia turned to follow, she felt fingers trying to find purchase on the back of her flannel shirt. She tucked her head, sprinting the remaining distance.

They both piled into the vehicle and Alicia shut the door behind them. Alicia deposited the camera in Al’s lap. The vehicle rumbled to life as Alicia turned the keys in the ignition. She rapidly put it into gear and pressed the gas pedal towards the floor. Thankfully, the dead were not coming from both directions, so she was able to mow down a couple of stragglers before heading to the open road. Al looked in the passenger side mirror to see a small hoard emerging from the swamp, a few of which were attempting a shambling pursuit. She heard the click of Alicia’s seatbelt and reached for her own. It never hurt to be careful.

“Damnit,” Alicia said, smacking the steering wheel for emphasis. “That geek almost got you. Why didn’t you just drop your camera and draw your knife? This stupid thing isn’t worth your life.”

“And I couldn’t disagree more,” Al said passionately. “Some things are more important than saving myself.”

Shaking her head, Alicia huffed. “If you die, your stories die with you! Nobody’s going to care about those tapes without you alive. They’ll just raid your truck for supplies and then leave them by the side of the road.”

“You’d have them,” Al replied softly. Alicia fought the instinct to look over at Al, staring intensely at the road before them. “You’d keep them for me.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

“I’ve seen enough to know about people. And you’re a keeper. That knife: it’s Nick’s. We’ve come across plenty of more efficient, higher quality knives. You could have tossed that a long time ago and geared up with a whole pile of better ones. But you haven’t. Because it means something to you. You resent the Hell out of him for ruining your childhood, but you kept his knife, just like you’ll keep my tapes.”

Alicia felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes and swallowed thickly. She pressed her lips together in a tight line to keep them back. Fury welled in her chest, because Alicia knew that Al was right: that she couldn’t bear to part with Nick’s knife and she’d cling to the tapes and that godforsaken camera until the day she died. She continued to drive in silence, refusing to acknowledge the fact that Al was totally right.

Al fussed with her camera, checking for damage. She reached into a canvas bag next to the driver’s seat and pulled out a small screwdriver and an LED flashlight. She made quick work of one of the side panels. She flicked the flashlight on and took its body between her teeth, shining it into the body of the camera. Realizing that there wasn’t any obvious damage, she replaced the panel and tossed the tools back in the bag. Appearing to sense that Alicia needed space that Al physically couldn’t give, she turned her attention out the window.

Suddenly, Alicia snickered. “You said I was a ‘a keeper.’”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

A grin spread its way across Alicia’s face. She waggled her eyebrows. “Oh, do I?”

“You know context when you see it, Miss Berkeley.”

Both women relaxed into a comfortable silence. Al glanced over her shoulder at Morgan, who remained on the floor of the rear compartment. He was still breathing, and the excitement had not woken him up. “I’m going to go check on Morgan, just to see how he’s doing,” Al said. She unbuckled her belt and slipped into the back.

Alicia heard her rummaging and then the click of two pairs of handcuffs. Morgan must not be doing very well if Al was that nervous about him turning. “He ok?” Alicia ventured.

“About the same. I think we should go for maybe another hour and then get some shuteye in the truck. I can’t speak for you, but I desperately need some rest.”

“So get some,” Alicia said. “Go ahead and sack out. I’ve got another fifty miles in me, at least.”

Al smiled. “Don’t get carried away. We should navigate together so we don’t end up lost.”

“Are you saying I have a bad sense of direction?”

“No, I’m saying so much has changed that anyone would have a bad sense of direction. Now, our next turn is in twenty-three miles, at which point we pull over and do our best to catch z’s up in the cabin.”

Alicia nodded her assent. Al reached into the glove box and pulled out a battered CD wallet. She pored through it for a moment before selecting a band Alicia had never heard of. Euro pop filled the cabin. Well, Alicia thought, I am definitely not falling asleep. Al curled up in her seat, leaning her head against the window. After a few minutes, Alicia could hear Al puff air through her lips as she fell asleep.

Al’s words haunted Alicia. She hadn’t given much thought to what might happen if Al were bitten or killed. One would think that she would stop taking people for granted in this world, but she had been on her way to doing just that yet again. She had taken Jake for granted. She had taken her family for granted. And now, she had taken Al for granted as well. First and foremost, she resolved, if something awful should happen to Al, she would keep the camera and the tapes. She would hold on to them until they were needed, or she died and passed them along to someone else. She briefly pondered what it would be like to take up Al’s work. She shook her head silently. There was too much tragedy. She couldn’t carry all those stories. She glanced over at Al as she slept, and her heart ached. When had she gotten so attached to the journalist?

Alicia returned her focus to the road, guiding the car around stopped vehicles and massive potholes. They were within a couple of hundred miles of their destination. She was grateful that Morgan had drawn them a map, in case something happened to him. She hoped rather desperately that they could get him to the help he needed, because he had quickly become someone she admired. 

A sign indicating the turn for Roanoke caught her eye. As a child, she’d been fascinated by the idea of the lost colony, even going so far as to try to prepare an expedition for when she got older, so she could be like Indiana Jones. She wondered what tiny Alicia would think of her adventures now. It gave her something to ponder to keep her eyes open. At least she’d been able to take a nap this afternoon while Al was driving.

Finally, she saw their turn, which coincided with an area clear of cars and dead. Thank God. She reached over and jostled Al’s knee to let her know that she was heading to sleep. Al writhed in her chair. She let loose a wordless cry and scrambled to get a grip in her seat. 

“Whoa,” Alicia said, as she eased the SWAT vehicle onto the berm of the road. “Easy.”

Al was drawing deep, gasping breaths. “Licia?”

“Yep. Just me.”

Al laid her head back against her headrest. She closed her eyes, put her feet flat on the floor, and tapped her thighs with her palms, alternating each side. Taking measured breaths, she slowly unwound, relaxing into her seat. After a few moments, she must have felt relaxed enough, because she stopped. Her hands rested in her lap. Al stared grimly at the dashboard.

Alicia sat awkwardly in her seat, unsure of what to do or say. She pushed the driver’s seat back away from the steering column so that she would have space to sprawl out. There was no way she was going back outside after what happened earlier.

“Umm, so,” Alicia tried, “is there… anything I can do? Or say? Or…”

Al shook her head. “Haven’t had one of those in awhile.”

“Nightmares?” Alicia asked.

“No, outbursts. The nightmares, they come every night. But I haven’t woken up into an episode in a good while.”

“Oh.” Alicia was at a loss. “Is this one of those things where you say you’re sorry and hope the other person feels better?”

“No. It’s one of those things you ignore until I’m back to myself and we pretend it never happened.”

“We don’t have to, you know. I’m here, if you need it.”

“Absolutely not,” Al said. “It’s nothing to do with you. I definitely don’t want to have to relive it enough to explain it to you.”

“Oh, ok.” Alicia replied in a wounded tone.

“Stop making this about you! Fuck it, I’m sleeping outside.” Al moved to open the door and dismount. Alicia’s heart was in her throat. She didn’t want anyone taking any more risks tonight, especially considering how badly their last venture out had gone. She quickly reached out and grabbed Al’s arm before she could pull the door handle.

“No, god, don’t. I’m sorry. My mom knew how to deal with this stuff. She was a school guidance counselor and was good at helping people. If you don’t need me to stab it or shoot it, I suck at helping. I’ll go in back, just please don’t go outside.”

Al stopped and settled back into her seat. “No, you don’t have to do that. Can’t have you turning if Morgan does. Just, let’s forget this and get some sleep.”

“Agreed,” Alicia acquiesced, anything to make this situation disappear. Alicia went in back to check Morgan and grab blankets. He was laid out on his belly, allowing them to clean and monitor his wound. She knelt down once again, resting the back of her hand against Morgan’s hot, sweaty forehead. She pulled some dressings out of a toolbox along the side of the vehicle. Pealing back his shirt, she quickly changed out his dressing and replaced it. She took his hand and stroked his forearm, willing him to live and silently promising that the would do their very best to get him to help. She looked up, feeling Al’s eyes on her while she worked.

“What?” She asked.

“Nothing, just… never mind.”

Alicia was done trying to figure things out for the day, so she moved further back and grabbed the blankets out of the back corner. She returned to the cab and tossed a blanket to Al, eager for today to be done. She curled up tightly between the seat and steering wheel, and settled in to sleep. She heard Al doing the same on the other side of the cab. It took her hours to fall asleep that night, with thoughts of Al, Morgan, her family, and dancing swirling in her head.


	2. Chapter 2

Alicia craned her neck to see the tip of the approaching fence. A church’s steeple rose up above it, serving as the first landmark to indicate that they had finally made it. The sheet metal towered over the road in front of them as they approached Alexandria. The door remained shut and, as they got closer, the outline of sentries became apparent. Now, all that remained to be seen was whether Morgan’s friends had retained control, or lost it to another group.

“Hell yes!” Al grinned. “We made it. Hey Morgan, we’re back to your people!”

Morgan let out a quiet groan. He definitely looked worse when Alicia had checked on him this morning, but was still very much alive. Hopefully, these folks had a decent doctor that could attend to him.

As Al drew up to the gate, they heard yelling through the SWAT vehicle’s open windows, and saw a flurry of activity. Soon, the sentry towers were lined with gunners, all pointing their weapons at the vehicle’s cabin. Al brought the van to a stop, put it in park, and then extended her hands out of the window. Alicia put her hands out, as well. Best to appear as unthreatening as a machine-gun armed SWAT vehicle can.

“Stay parked right there,” a feminine voice called out. “We’ll come to you. If your hands so much as twitch, we’ll make walkers out of you. Now, what d’ya want?”

Alicia remained silent. As much experience with organized groups as she’d had, she’d never actually been the one to make first contact. They had agreed that Al would negotiate their way into the settlement.

Al smiled congenially and launched into her entreaty. “We’re travelers who met one of your people out on the road. He asked us to come back with him. Said we’d be welcome. Maybe build a life for ourselves?”

“Where is this person?”

“He’s in the back. He took a bullet during a highway robbery and saved our lives. Now, we’re trying to return the favor.”

“What is his name?”

“Morgan. We don’t know his last name. Please, he’s hurt very badly. We’ll stay in the cabin, or whatever feels safest to you, and you can come get him.

The people atop the walls chattered and looked furtively at each other. Alicia noticed a commotion on the guard tower to the right as its occupants made room for another person. A more commanding, masculine voice took over.

“O.K, we’re going to give you a little faith. I need you to use one of your hands to use one of the outside handles, open the doors, and slowly step out. You will get on your knees and lower yourselves to the ground. Any deviations from my instructions, and we open fire. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” they both replied. 

Alicia felt around the exterior of the vehicle for the handle with her left hand. She closed her fingers around it and slowly pulled. The door creaked open, and she eased herself out onto the pavement, hands in the air. She dropped to her knees, wincing as one of the tendons in her left knee complained, and then to the ground. The passenger side front tire was blocking her view of Al, but since she hadn’t heard any gunfire, it could be assumed that Al had adequately complied with the directions. That being said, she found it deeply unsettling that Al was out of sight.

She heard the sheet metal groan as the gate clacked open. She heard several pairs of boots jog out on the asphalt, towards the truck. “The keys are in the ignition,” Al said. Alicia heard someone clamber up into the cab and pull them out.

A grim man with long, curly hair and a thick, fuzzy beard knelt down, grabbed her wrist and pulled it behind her. He handcuffed first one wrist, and then the other until her arms were safely behind her. Alicia tried not to panic. She could not remember a single time in which she was handcuffed or zip tied that went well. Handcuffs, as she had decided to call him, hauled her to her feet and marched around the front of the SWAT vehicle to the edge of the grass. Al was already seated, and Handcuffs indicated that Alicia was to sit with her. Alicia sat obediently. Handcuffs crouched down in front of them a few feet away.

There was a flurry of activity in the rear of the vehicle. Someone emerged from the gate with a stretcher, as his friends cleared away the things inside the van in order to maneuver Morgan out. One of the Alexandrian’s carelessly tossed a leather satchel to the ground and letters, which had once been bound by a string spilled out on the ground. The stiff breeze began to blow at the corners of the papers, threatening to send them sailing off into the countryside. Al’s reserve snapped.

“No, no, NO!” Al shouted, as she lurched to her feet. Suddenly, everyone was shouting, with the people in the guard towers bellowing warnings. Al staggered forward, struggling to balance without use of her arms. She was brought to a stop just short of her target when a loud crack shocked the air and a bullet buried itself into the satchel’s flap inches from her toe.

“Freeze!” Handcuffs commanded at the top of his lungs. The Alexandrians on the walls froze. The ones working on Morgan kept going, assuming this order was not directed at them. Al flopped on top of the satchel to keep the papers inside and curled tightly into a ball. Alicia stared, with wide eyes, in abject horror. Her mouth was suddenly parched. Handcuffs glared back and forth between Al and Alicia. “Explain.”

Alicia started, before Al said something she couldn’t take back. “She’s a some kind of journalist, ok? My guess is those are her notes. Probably. I hope.”

Handcuffs looked at her completely incredulously. “Notes. THOSE are worth dying for?”

Alicia giggled nervously. “Don’t even get me started. You wouldn’t believe what she risked for that fancy camera in there.”

The Alexandrians had now managed to load up Morgan onto the stretcher. Another followed them out with two pairs of handcuffs. Alicia cursed under her breath. They had completely forgotten to free him just before they arrived. Finding the keys must have been what took them so long to get him out.

“Care to explain these?”

Alicia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Had to be sure he wouldn’t bite us if he died and turned. I guarantee that if you are as smart as he said you are, you’d have done the same thing. We only added those the last hundred miles or so, when it became a bigger question as to whether he would make it.”

Handcuffs nodded. “I see. That seems… practical. Here’s how this works: you did us a favor by bringing him back, despite how damaged as he is. So, I’m going to do you one and let you live. I’ll even keep my people from stripping your van down for parts and repurposing your gear. We bring you in, put you in a cell. From there, you have precisely one opportunity each to convince me that you are worth having around. If you pass, we set you up in our community, and you take charge of that truck for us. Fail, and we let you out the front door with what you can carry, and you’re free to try your luck elsewhere. There are other communities in the area, and they might be more willing to take a risk than we are.”

“As for you,” he approached Al, and knelt down. “I’m going to grab these priceless notes when Scott over here picks you up off of them. I’ll need you to go quietly, but I promise to be kind to them.”

Al mumbled something too soft for Alicia to hear. Handcuffs nodded, and beckoned for Scott to grab Al. He stepped forward and carefully pulled Al to her feet. Another Alexandrian sporting a beard and man-bun moved to Alicia’s side and helped her up as well, steering her into the gates. They all stepped aside to allow the stretcher holding Morgan to rush past them towards the infirmary. Alicia took that moment to look around.

Alexandria was breathtakingly beautiful, particularly given the circumstances. Its residents lined the road inward, craning their necks to see what was going on. There were a wide variety of people come to gawk at the newcomers, including, to Alicia’s utter shock, babies. She hadn’t seen a baby in years. At the Stadium, they had been considered too big a risk. Birth control and condoms were very readily available for anyone even thinking about sex. But here, she thought, there are freaking babies!

They were led to a series of row homes, two of which were brick, and the other two half brick, half siding. Scott pulled out a key fob and opened a white garage door in the middle. The inside had been converted to a sparse holding area, complete with cells. Alicia’s stomach wobbled, realizing that’s where they were headed: no weapons and no escape, should things take a wrong turn. They were deposited, together, in the right cell. It became abundantly clear why, as Alicia was able to observe serious damage to the cell across from them. It would seem that its previous occupant had wanted out rather badly. Al sat down awkwardly, while Alicia slid down against the wall. Scott stayed with them, while Man Bun disappeared out the garage door. Al maneuvered herself so that she, too, could lean back against the cinder block wall.

“That could have gone better,” she said.

Alicia gaped at her. “No, shit! What the fuck was that with your notes? I can’t imagine you forgetting much, Paparazzo.”

“They weren’t notes, Alicia. They were letters.”

“What, like from your folks?”

“No, from a friend in my travels. They’re more important than anything in that stupid truck, including the camera and all of my tapes.”

“Dear God, I didn’t even think it was possible for anything to trump your camera. What happened to the ‘anything for a story’ bullshit?”

“That wasn’t bullshit. I would do anything for a story. I’d just do more for the story in those letters than I would about the land of the dead.”

“Please tell me that’s not going to be the title of whatever fucked up documentary you get out of all of this,” Alicia joked.

“No, that’s going to be Fucked Up Documentary, and you’re getting top billing.”

“Fuck you,” Alicia said with no malice, as she smiled, letting loose a snort. She put her head back and shut her eyes. There was someone out there who mattered more to Al than her magnum opus. This thought distressed her more than she was prepared for. She quickly pushed those thoughts away.

“Whose they guy in the letters?”

“Who says it’s a guy?”

“Come on, Al, it beats out Fucked Up Documentary, remember?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Not today. It is a guy, just not in the way you mean.” After a moment of silence, Al continued gently “But maybe, get me drunk enough on really, really good gin, and I’ll tell you.”

The way Al said it made Alicia think that this was something she’d never told anyone. She knew better than to push her luck. Instead, she leaned her head against Al’s shoulder in solidarity. She whispered softly, “Ok.”

It was in that raw moment that the garage door rumbled to life again and Handcuffs came back into the garage with Man Bun. Handcuffs looked them both over and pointed at Alicia. Scott unlocked their cell and Man Bun came in to help her up. Handcuffs first addressed Alicia, “You’ll be coming with me for your interview.” He turned to Al, “And then it will be your turn.”

Alicia followed them out into the street. She shifted her arms to alleviate the discomfort of the handcuffs binding her wrists. She hoped they would come off soon, but didn’t think it likely.

“Who took it upon themselves to do the remodeling on the cell across from us?”

“That was Negan and his goons,” Handcuffs replied. “He used to be the leader of a really nasty gang that we put down, but he had just enough people remaining to help him break out. That sick fuck is entirely too smart for everyone’s good, and he’s not someone to trifle with. I watched him beat two people to death with a barbed wire baseball bat the crazy bastard named Lucille. We don’t know where he’s gone, just that he’s not here. I’ll take it. So, you can see why we have to be careful when it comes to new people.”

Alicia nodded. “I totally understand. I lost my entire family because our settlement trusted the wrong people.”

“I’m truly sorry to hear that,” Handcuffs replied. They took a turn to the left and approached a large house with pale blue siding and a huge porch with expertly turned white painted woodwork. A handmade mahogany chair sat next to a screen door with pristine mesh. It was well-maintained, one of the first real homes she’d seen since leaving Brokejaw Ranch. She was ushered up the steps and in through the front door, before being guided into a large living room.

A large leather couch and mustard colored throw with soft-looking tan pillows dominated the room. The coffee table was a dark hardwood, polished to an almost mirror finish, with three red candlesticks in mismatched holders. Across from the couch, a massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, containing countless books in no particular order, took up half of the wall. Next to it, there was also an open window, with white, airy curtains blowing gently inward. A brown, paisley wing-back chair had been placed in front of the books. There was a large fireplace to the left of the couch. The ashes from the previous night’s fire had not yet been cleaned out. The room even had a TV, complete with surround sound speakers. The shelf below the TV had various books between nautical themed bookends and a three-quarters empty bottle of scotch. Handcuffs grabbed the scotch off of the mantle and disappeared, presumably to find glasses. “You can have a seat in the chair,” Handcuffs called over his shoulder.

Alicia sat. She looked around the room once again, taking everything in. It was stunningly beautiful, and deeply unsettling. She hadn’t seen anything that nice since the outbreak. Even the Ranch was still packed with people living out of RVs and tents. There was nothing classy about anywhere she’d lived. 

Handcuffs returned with two crystal glasses and the Scotch. He set those down on the table and retrieved a key from his pocket. He approached Alicia and removed her cuffs, putting them away in a leather handcuff carrier on his waistband. Alicia blinked in surprise.

“I think we can do away with these,” he patted at the cuffs, “We need to have a real conversation, and it’s hard for restrained people to be honest.” He pressed a button on a video camera that Alicia hadn’t noticed was there when faced with such opulence.

“Let’s try this again. Hello. My name’s Rick. What’s yours?”

“Alicia.”

“Where are you from?”

Alicia snickered and shook her head.

“Is something funny?” Rick asked.

“No, it’s just, my friend, the journalist, was just interviewing me yesterday before dinner and it started just like this.”

Rick smiled. “I see, funny how life works?”

“To answer your question, I’m from Los Angeles, by way of Mexico and Texas.”

Rick’s eyebrows shot up and his face displayed utter shock. After a moment, he regained his senses. He covered his mouth with his hand and shook his head. “Incredible. How is that possible?”

Alicia grimaced. “It took me four years five family members, two boyfriends, and three dear friends to get here.”

“So you feel like you’re here because you stood on other people’s backs?”

“How could I not? The biters went for them instead of me. Bandits chose them over me. They sacrificed themselves to save me. I’m here today because a lot of other people aren’t.” Alicia teared up as she finished, exhaling loudly. She hadn’t realized how the weight of all those deaths was still pressing down on her shoulders.

Rick’s face softened further and he reached for the Scotch, pouring two glasses worth. “That’s true for all of us, I think, but I’m sorry for your loss all the same. Have a drink to their memory and your future.”

Alicia leaned forward in her seat accepted the drink Rick offered. Both raised their glasses to his toast and tossed back the smoky, burning liquor. Alicia stared at the empty tumbler for a moment, then reached for a coaster to put it on the coffee table. By the time she leaned back into her chair, Rick had settled into his seat on the couch, legs crossed in a figure four and arm up over the back.

“Around here,” Rick began, “We ask three questions of everyone who joins up with us. It’s a pretty simple interview process, so just answer everything as completely as you can, and we’ll assess from there.”

“Ok.”

“First: how many walkers… er, biters you called them, have you killed?”

Alicia’s stomach sank. She had no idea specific numbers, just that it had to be large. She thought carefully about how to give Rick an understanding that she was good in a fight with the dead. “I’ve killed more ‘walkers’ than I can properly count. I’m good at clearing out buildings and other large spaces. I can get their attention when entering a building for the first time. I know how to lure them out so you can corral them…”

“Why would we want to do that?” Rick asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“Not necessarily something we’d want to do,” Alicia added quickly, “but it’s important to know that someone could do use that against us. My mom was killed saving our lives after a group of raiders rounded up all the biters in the area into moving trucks and set them free on our home.”

“I see,” Rick said with a stone face. Alicia inwardly cringed. This was not a good sign. She really had been out in the wilds for too long. She hung her head and looked at the white carpeting stained only by the soil from the bottom of her boots. She hoped that Al would be smarter. Who knew? Maybe Al’s adventures before the world’s end had prepared her for questions like this. “How many people have you killed?”

Alicia’s head shot up. Apparently the interview was not over. She collected herself for a moment and responded, “Twelve. I may not remember every walker, but I do remember every person. I don’t know all their names, but their faces stay with me.”

“Why did you kill them?” The question hung pregnant, in the air. Here it was. The moment everything unraveled, because truthfully, she had no idea what a pretty community like this would consider an acceptable answer. She thought about shading it, shaving some of the worst bits off, but this seemed like a man who could see his way through bullshit. Besides, she wasn’t sure she would feel like she deserved to stay if she had to lie her way in. She tried to picture Morgan, like she was sharing these details with him.

“My first human was a guy named Andre from a fledgeling community my family was helping to run. He attacked my step dad. Before I knew it, my knife was in my hand, shoved into his chest.” She shook her head, still horrified after all these years, at how quickly the whole scenario had unfolded. This opened the floodgates and suddenly Alicia couldn’t stop confessing. “Then, there was Cooper, Stan, Kerry, Dax, and Blake, who I killed because they'd all been bitten and the bunker we were in was running out of air. Melvin came next. He was the leader of a group of raiders called the Vultures, who incidentally, were from whom I learned the trick to herding biters. He murdered my mother, my friends, everyone in the community but me, my brother, and two others. I know the right reason to kill him was to prevent him from hurting anyone else, but the truth is that I wanted the bastard dead more than I cared about altruism. There were two more Vultures: one guy with a ZZ Top beard and a tall, thin lady in her forties. The rest were bandits while we were on the road-“

Rick stopped her. “It’s ok. You don’t have to relive it all. You’ve given me enough to think about. Now, we take you back to your cell, interview your friend, and make our decision.” He poured two more glasses of Scotch and nudged one in her direction. “One for the road. Now, I do have one more question: how the Hell does a kid like you know ZZ top?”

Alicia chuckled. Maybe things weren’t totally screwed. She took the glass and tossed it back. “I once danced a tap routine to ‘La Grange’ and I was hooked.”

Rick looked bemused. “That must have been something. All right. Let’s get you back to the cell so I can interview your friend.” Alicia stood and extended her wrists in front of her. Rick waved her off. “Nah, I think we’ve established that we don’t need those for you.” And with that, they were on their way back to the cells.


	3. Chapter 3

Alicia stared at the color variations in the cinder blocks that made up her cell. There were multiple shades of gray, with very little wear and tear. It would appear that these had been constructed fairly recently. She sat with her knees to her chin, tapping her feet on the floor, alternating left and right. She chewed the skin around her cuticles absently. At least she wasn’t cuffed. What she wouldn’t give for something to distract her from their situation. Al had been gone a long time: much longer than Alicia. Alicia wondered what those other communities Rick mentioned might be like, and whether they would take them in.

Alicia heard the squawk, as Man Bun’s walkie buzzed to life. Man Bun stepped into the jail proper and gestured for Scott to let her out. He met her in the middle of the room with a sack that most likely held her belongings. She glanced inside, looking for her weapons. When she didn’t see any, she had to tamp down her unease. She didn’t like being unarmed. If they still didn’t have any weapons after she got to her new place, she’d make a point of asking. She could be patient.

“This means we’re in?”

“Yeah,” Man Bun replied. “The name’s Eduardo. I’m not actually from the Alexandria Safe Zone, but I’m here to lend a hand while they rebuild a few things. I’ll be taking you to your new home, where we’ll meet up with your friend.”

“Any chance we could check on Morgan?”

Eduardo smiled. “Not for now. Denise, our doc, says she’s going to be working on him for a bit. But we can definitely send someone over to your place once she’s done.”

“That would be really great,” Alicia said gratefully.

“We’re going to set you up in a house over on the far east of town.” He started walking down wide dirt path away from the community’s entrance. “We’re getting a little low on space, so you’ll have to share with your friend.”

“Whoa.”

“I’m really sorry, after Oceanside came to our aid in a recent conflict, a few people stayed on. That meant people had to double up on houses.”

“I don’t mind roommates.”

Eduardo smiled. “Hey, anything’s better than out there,” he gestured to the wall. He handed her a hatchet and a buck knife. “They’re still going through your vehicle, so you won’t get that gear back for awhile and we are loathe to leave any of our people unarmed.”

Alicia accepted the weapons. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He led her to a two-story house with yellow siding, sage green shudders, and white trim. It had a porch with iron wrought railings painted white. The foundation was deep red brick, and it had not one, but two chimneys. It was the kind of house Alicia had never allowed herself to dream of having, like a giant dollhouse come to life. There was even a porch swing.

“I get to stay here?” Alicia gawked.

Eduardo’s smile overtook the rest of his handsome face. “Yep. It’s all yours now. Get settled in and then we can talk about what kind of job you’d like in a couple of days.”

Alicia’s eyes darted from palest blue curtains in the windows, to her neighbor’s neatly trimmed, if slightly dry, lawns; just to be sure this was real. Creeping Charlie spread widely, a bad comb over stretching between patches of brown and green grass. Her house lot left generous space on either side. The homes book ending it were similar enough that it was clear they belonged to a development, but not identical enough that she felt like she’d wandered into Stepford.

She made her way up to the swing. The chain creaked as she stiffly sat down on the cedar bench. She pushed her legs back, and let go, allowing the swing to come forward, then oscillate back. The air gently rushed over her face and through her hair. She closed her eyes to embrace the moment. The tension between her shoulder blades dissolved, along with the pinching at her temples. 

Abruptly, something desperate bubbled up in her chest. She felt the air compressing in her lungs, creating dizziness. Her heart hammered. Her hands and fingers tingled. She stood up abruptly and stood, blinking on the porch waiting for it to pass. The swing crashed into the back of her calves, helping to ground her in the moment. Eventually, her apprehension subsided. She decided it was high time she found Al, then maybe check in with the doctor. Hopefully whatever just happened wasn’t serious.

She opened the door and stepped over the threshold. “Al?” she called out. “Where are you?” Silence greeted her. She could feel her chest tightening again. She ran from room to room, ignoring the fine furnishings, looking only for Al. Alicia started to full-on panic. What if they were only keeping Alicia? She felt sick to realize that she hadn’t bothered to ask about Al, assuming that that they would be either accepted or rejected together. Then, she saw her bag on the front porch through one of the front windows. It triggered her memory that Eduardo told her they were both in. Of course. Al was fine, and they were both staying. She felt embarrassed at having forgotten such an important detail and the subsequent hysteria. Alicia went back out to the front porch to wait for Al on the swing so that they could discover their new home together. 

She didn’t have to wait long. Al rounded, the corner, her precious satchel slung over her shoulder, led by Eduardo. Her heart warmed as Al tucked a few strands of her dark hair behind her ear. Al smiled broadly at her. Alicia unconsciously fussed with her own hair for a moment, and stood up to meet them. Al stopped for a moment to take in the house. She whistled her appreciation. “This place sure is something. And we didn’t even have to clear it of the dead first. So what’s it like inside, Alicia?”

“Don’t know. I was waiting for you,” she said nervously, while Al climbed the stairs to the front porch. Now, waiting seemed dumb. “If we’re sharing, I figured we could, I don’t know, check it out together and figure out where we want to put all five of our possessions?”

“That’s sweet,” Al said. She reached for the brass rose center door knob and pulled open the door.

“I’ll just be off, then,” Eduardo said over his shoulder as he turned and headed back out.

Al chuckled.

“What?” Alicia asked.

“You haven’t checked the place out yet, huh?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Why?”

“Because,” Al gestured to robins egg blue carpet, “Unless an unusually coordinated biter, or the otherwise talented cleaning crew, left size 9.5 boot prints leading from room to room, someone took a quick look around before trying out the porch swing.”

Alicia’s face fell. “I panicked. I couldn’t find you, so I ran around like an idiot looking. Once I came to my senses and realized you were probably on your way, I went straight back outside. I promise that I didn’t actually see anything…”

Al cocked her head slightly and squinted her green eyes in Alicia’s direction. A soft smile played at the corners of her lips. “I see. Well, then, let’s take a real look around.” She hooked her arm around Alicia’s and pulled her into the living room to the right of the front door. Alicia soaked up the warmth of human contact, and mentally swatted at a few butterflies batting against the inner lining of her stomach.

The house was as beautiful inside as it was out. It was tastefully decorated with what appeared to be brand new furniture. Alicia was particularly fond of an overstuffed armchair/ottoman combination with a ghastly red and green on white floral pattern. However, it appeared to be ridiculously comfortable, which explained its presence. There were two bedrooms with huge, freshly made beds in clean linens. One room had a more American colonial feel, while the other Italian modern. Amenities included running water, electricity, and a fully stocked fridge, complete with freezer pops. She almost cried at the sight of fresh carrots, their bright orange adding to a colorful array of garden vegetables in the crisper. Al plucked out a lemon-lime flavored freeze and gestured for Alicia to take her pick.

“Blue.”

Al tossed her a blue one, and Alicia snagged it effortlessly out of the air. Alicia wandered around to the far side of the dark marble bar counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. She situated herself onto one of the sturdy cherry wood bar stools while Al searched the drawers for a pair of scissors. 

She sighed as she looked at cerulean ice encased tightly in thick plastic. Beads of condensation and grains of frost quickly overtook the smooth packaging. Back home, Nick always got the blue ones. She had been stuck with red, which was better than orange or lemon-lime, but still not her favorite. She mused briefly about what he would have thought of the Alexandria safe zone. The bitter part of her wondered how he’d fuck it all up for them. She hated herself for that thought. It must have shown on her face, because Al’s expression went from triumphant at having discovered the location of the scissors to concerned.

“What just happened?”

“I just had some uncharitable thoughts about Nick.”

“Oh?” Al extended an open palm, brandishing the scissors in the other hand. Alicia handed over her freezer pop, and Al lopped off the tip of the plastic tubing. She repeated the action with her own. Placing both of her forearms on the bar next to Alicia, Al leaned against the countertop. She nibbled on the tip of hers and waited for Alicia to elaborate.

“I was just thinking about how Nick would react to this place and then, I couldn’t help but think that we’re better off without him here to ruin things, and his uncanny ability to escape consequences once he does. Now, I feel like a total jerk. He’s dead and I shouldn’t be thinking mean things about him.”

Al squeezed the bottom of her freeze pop and crunched the flavored ice at the top. Alicia sucked on the end of hers nervously. Al bumped shoulders with Alicia, before responding. “You’re not a bad person, if that’s what you’re worried about. From what little I know about him, he sounds like he was a total pain in the ass. A pain in the ass that you loved and cared deeply for. He had the potential to be a great brother. But he wasn’t. And you’re allowed to be upset about that.”

“How’d you get so smart?”

“I had a not so great sister. I know what it’s like to never get the blue one.”

Al and Alicia finished their snacks and settled their meager possessions into their home. Once done, they wandered over to the infirmary. They chatted about the layout of the small community and the viability of its defenses. Alicia cherished the opportunity to have a nice conversation without having to worry about it being interrupted by the dead.

Several Alexandrians had gathered on the porch of the infirmary to await news of Morgan. An older woman with short, curly grey hair and fierce expression reclined in an Adirondack chair. A biker with long dark hair and generous facial scruff leaned against one of the white posts. A woman with flannel, jeans, and a ponytail was playing backgammon on the steps with a thin teenage boy sporting an eye patch and a sheriff’s hat. Four heads swiveled towards the newcomers. They looked at Alicia and Al warily. The young woman moved her checker, then tentatively waved, furnishing a half smile. Alicia waved back and Al nodded.

“I’m Tara,” said the backgammon player. “This guy with the cowboy hat is Carl, our curmudgeon in the chair is Carol, and Hells Angels Ken is Daryl.”

Daryl’s face screwed up and his tone was laden with disgust. “What’d I tell you about calling me that?”

“To think long and hard before I did it again,” Tara replied with a grin. “And I’ve had plenty of time to think since they got here.”

Daryl grumped to himself before turning his attention to Al and Alicia. “You got names?”

“Alicia and Al,” Alicia spoke up. Before Alicia could say anything else, Carol interrupted. Her expression was furious.

“What did you let happen to Morgan?”

Alicia and Al looked at each other. Here it is, Alicia thought. This is where they change their minds about allowing us to stay.

Al took point. She was, after all, a professional storyteller. “We ran out of gas. My van’s pretty awesome, but it is a bit heavy on fuel. Licia and I went to find some while Morgan stayed behind to guard it. We’re not entirely sure what happened, but we’d only gotten about a mile away before we heard the gunshots. We ran back to find three thieves trying to take off with the van and Morgan bleeding on the ground. Of course, they couldn’t get anywhere, so they were livid. We managed to get the drop on them. Alicia came right at them, dropping one, while I flanked them, tagging the other two. I stayed behind to patch up Morgan and Alicia rushed off to find fuel. We were ludicrously lucky there was an abandoned truck just down the road that had diesel. The driver had turned and crashed it into a tree.”

“What were you thinking, leaving him alone with something that valuable?” Carol asked, anger coloring her tone.

Al shook her head. “There were three of us. The van was stalled, and has a pretty sweet defense system. If Morgan had stayed inside and just used the gun turrets like I showed him, he’d probably still be in one piece.”

“If you really knew Morgan, you would know that he doesn’t just take people’s lives,” Carol snapped. Her brows were furrowed and fists clenched.

Alicia saw that the situation was quickly getting out of hand, so she interrupted Al, whose face was reddening in fury. “Yes, you’re right. We should have thought of that. But we’re still getting to know him, so it didn’t occur to us until after we were back on the road, rushing to get him here.”

Al turned her glare to Alicia, but before she could say anything, the screen door creaked loudly as Denise came out of the infirmary, wiping her hands down with a mostly pink towel dotted with crimson. The door snapped shut violently behind her, causing Alicia to nearly jump out of her skin. Al’s hand was three quarters of the way to where she normally kept her pistol, and her facial expression was rattled. Even the native Alexandrians appeared unnerved. Daryl grumbled something about hating the stupid thing.

Denise was not what Alicia had expected. She was definitely not the type that would typically survive in times like these. Even Tara, with her jovial nature, clearly had some hard edges to her. Denise’s bearing was gentle and borderline timid. How had she lasted?

“Well, not to be cliché, but this is a good news, bad news situation. On the one hand, you two managed to power him here fast enough that I think he’s going to live, provided he doesn’t go septic on us. The bad news, the shot destroyed part of his spinal column, meaning he’s not walking again. To make matters worse, there’re supplies we just don’t have here to properly reinforce his spine. For that, we need a hospital.” 

“I’ll go,” Alicia volunteered. “He saved my life, once. I’ll get him whatever he needs.”

Alicia noticed Al tense, her lips creasing, as if she had an objection that she was fighting to keep to herself.

“No,” said Daryl. “We’ll put together a group and head into DC.”

“I’m good in a fight,” Alicia shot back. “Ask Al. Or Morgan, if he wakes before we go.”

Daryl nodded. “I don’t doubt that. But you did us a kindness just bringing him here. And, you’re new, which means we haven’t learned how to fight together yet. There will be plenty of opportunities to prove your chops, just not for this.”

Alicia nodded. It made logical sense. These people had been fighting shoulder to shoulder for quite some time, and she was a new element. “Look, I know he matters a lot to you all, but just so we’re clear, he matters a lot to us, too.”

Daryl and Tara nodded. Carol pushed past them, heading for the front gate. Daryl’s gaze followed her, before he took off after her. Tara watched them both leave. Alicia looked around for Carl, realizing that he must have left at some time during the conversation. 

Al stepped up on the porch. “I’d like to get a look at this infirmary, if you don’t mind. I haven’t seen a functioning one since the world fell.”

“He’s not going to be up for visitors right now,” Denise asserted, probably in case Al was using this as a chance to bypass her to visit Morgan.

“I figured. I’m just a curious creature by nature.”

“Careful, Denise,” Alicia cautioned. “Before you know it, you’re going to be headlining ‘Fucked Up Documentary.’”

Al rolled her eyes, while Denise and Tara gave Alicia strange looks. Denise ushered her inside, leaving Tara and Alicia out front. Tara set herself down on the steps again next to the backgammon board. “Up for a game?” she asked as she set up the checkers. The set had a grey board with burgundy and black points, and matching checkers. There were chips and scratches in the paint, indicating significant wear. Ratty black leather, faded to grey, stretched over wooden dice cups. It looked well loved.

“Sure. I think I remember how to play. Just correct me if I mess up.”

Alicia sat down across from Tara and pondered her first move. Tara won the dice roll off, and started her game by assertively moving one of her checkers five points and a different one, one point. Alicia couldn’t remember whether that was a smart move. Alicia rolled her own dice and scanned the board before moving one of her checkers three points. 

The game continued in silence for a few minutes. Tara looked like she was struggling with what to say, and Alicia wasn’t faring much better. Tara made a vexed noise as Alicia made, what she hoped was, a brilliant move by sheer accident. 

“I feel like I should start asking you ice breaker questions,” Alicia rambled helplessly. “What’s your job? What’s your favorite band? But none of that stuff really matters anymore. I guess ‘what do you do to earn your keep around here’ is still important?”

“First off,” Tara raised her head from the palm she’d been resting her cheek on. Her eyes bored into Alicia’s to make her point as she gestured slightly with her right arm. “Everything matters. Who you were before, who you are now, who you’ll be tomorrow. And especially Tupac. A life without “Changes” isn’t one worth living. To answer your question, I go on supply runs a couple of times a month, as well as during emergencies.”

“I mostly concede your point about Tupac, but everyone knows that ‘California Love’ was his best,” Alicia said, arching her eyebrows.

“The only people who like that one are actually from California.” Tara laughed.

“L.A., born and raised.” Alicia leaned back in her black wicker chair, crossing her legs. She took a swig from a glass of water that Carl had been kind enough to bring everyone. “At least, until the government napalmed it.”

“No freaking way.” Tara’s eyes were now the size of an owl’s. “You were all the way out there when the outbreak hit?”

“I’m going to have to review this with everyone, aren’t I?” Alicia ran a hand over the hair on her scalp. She successfully fought rolling her eyes. Instead, she examined a rogue ragweed plant growing against the side of the adjacent house. Her mom had always claimed she’d escaped Alabama to L.A. to get away from the pollen, only to find it growing in the new neighbor’s yard. Her nose tingled and she fought a sympathy sneeze. “Yes, I crossed the country and part of Mexico filled with biters. No, I don’t want to talk about it. Your move.”

“I’m sorry,” Tara said, raising her hands, palms splayed in front of her. “I’ve just never met anyone who has come that far, and that’s super interesting. People are going to be curious, though. You have to expect a certain amount of that, because people don’t exactly get out anymore. Your average Alexandrian is lucky to get to the other side of the wall. Denise will probably have a million questions. She’s my girlfriend, and she’s like Al, in that they’re super curious. What about you, are the two of you together, then?”

“What? No! Why would you think that?” 

“Sorry again, I guess you guys seem kind of couple-y.

Alicia was totally flummoxed. She had been so very careful to think of absolutely no one in that way, given what happened with Jake Otto, that she hadn’t stopped to consider the signs. It all came together, the feelings she had whenever Al looked at her just so, or gently touched her arm. Holy shit. She was, at the very least, infatuated with Al. This was bad. Not that this was the first time she’d developed a bit of a thing for another woman, it was just the strongest she’d ever let herself get attached; these times weren’t for getting attached. She stood up abruptly, knocking over the backgammon board.

“I’ve got to, uh, go, and get dinner started. You know, a new kitchen with real food. Those carrots won’t steam themselves,” Alicia finished lamely, as if she actually knew how to steam carrots. 

Tara smiled conspiratorially and nodded. “Sure thing,” she replied, bending to pick up the game pieces. While Tara was busy, Alicia made a beeline for their kitchen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so please be patient: I haven’t ever written anything with sex in it before, as I’ve always been rather uncomfortable about it (stupid Puritanical upbringing). So, if you have any comments or critiques, I would especially appreciate them with this.

Alicia had been wrong in her initial assessment. The ugly chair was distinctly uncomfortable, which begged the question: why was it there in the first place? The answers to that were long gone with whoever had selected the furniture. Thus, she found herself curled up on the pillowy couch at three o’clock in the morning, chin resting on her knees. The TV screen flickered as Moonrise Kingdom played on the Blu ray player. The movie collection here had been surprisingly robust, and this was on the list of things she’d always wanted to see. Her heart ached a little to realize that there would be no more Wes Anderson movies. It seemed good, although she was having trouble focusing.

Her body wanted to sleep, but her mind wouldn’t let her. She’d checked in with Denise earlier, to learn that the episode on the front porch was probably a panic attack, which was a bit of a relief, as it meant she wasn’t dying. Denise had been extra excited, as her psychiatry skills were finally useful. She told Alicia to keep an eye on things and get back to her in a week, at which point they could talk about the small stash of psych meds Alexandria had in their stores, if necessary. However, Denise didn’t seem to think that they would be with enough rest and proper nutrition, along with the reduced amount of stress. She stated that she would advise Rick against sending Alicia or Al out before they got acclimated.

She shivered. Alexandria was much colder than the southwest desert she was used to. Pulling the thick factory woven afghan off of the back of the couch, she wrapped it around her shoulders. She played with the tassels, running the yellow yarn between her fingers.

Her thoughts turned back to her late night musings, this time settling on the friends she’d left behind in Texas. John Dorie and June had taken Charlie, and set out for his cabin to find what peace they could. Strand and Luciana were shoring up the mansion, which possessed a surprising number of creature comforts, given that there was no power or plumbing. 

She had originally planned on trying to eke out her existence there with them, but then Al and Morgan had come to her and asked her to accompany them on their adventure east. Morgan made a very good case for the trip, but it was Al who had inexplicably won her over. She cited Morgan’s reasons when telling Strand and Luci of her plans, but she refused to lie to herself about who had convinced her to uproot again. Now, she wished that she’d fought harder for them to come with. Luci would love the record player attached to the wicked sound system over in the far corner. Strand could sit in the uncomfortable chair and complain, while drinking from one of the fine bottles of homemade applejack that Tara and Denise had gifted them as housewarming. If they’d come, Alicia would have somebody with whom to eat ice cream, watch The Notebook, and talk about girls.

If you had asked her yesterday, Alicia would have said that Al was a fine friend, and Alicia was glad to be spending as much time together as possible. She would have claimed that, despite the context, the journey from Texas to Alexandria had been the best road trip of her life. She might have mentioned that Al was the closest friend that she’d ever had. She might have slipped in something about Al being one of the few people she felt safe being vulnerable around, despite the perils of doing so in this world. She definitely would not have said anything about romantic notions of any kind.

Whatever these new feelings for her were, she had not been ready to acknowledge them, and now they were wrestled out into the open, blinking in the light. She tried lying to herself for a moment, saying that this was just the apocalypse and a natural response to a now frighteningly small dating pool. It wasn’t true, though; Alicia would have been captivated no matter where or when she met Al. She pictured, just for a moment, standing hip deep at El Matador Beach to see Al’s lithe figure wading out into the water perpendicular to her. Al seemed to soak all of the bright sunlight on the beach and cast it back out in a mesmerizing glow. 

Alicia brought her thoughts to a screeching halt, feeling guilty for allowing herself that indulgence. They were friends, and Alicia insisted to herself that she would respect Al’s boundaries. Besides, what place did feelings like these have in a world like this?

Alicia was disrupted from her musings as she heard the soft pat of bare feet connecting with tile in the kitchen. She craned her neck over the back of the sofa to make sure it wasn’t a threat. Al, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, crossed into the living room and rounded the sofa’s arm. Her thick sage comforter was thrown hastily over her shoulders. The hair on the left side of her head stuck out at ridiculous angles. Alicia couldn’t help but beam.

Alicia unfolded her legs and reached for the remote. Al stated the obvious, “It’s 3 am and you’re watching a movie.”

“Sorry if it was too loud. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Al replied. “I woke on my own a few minutes ago and heard the TV faintly from my room. Is everything ok?”

Alicia thought about lying to her, then realized maybe Al would understand. Al was so badly damaged from the sum of all traumas, that she’d lost the ability to discuss anything anyone would consider normal. Who better to help her sort out her insomnia? Alicia would just have to leave out the bit where she couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“I can’t sleep. My brain won’t shut down. It keeps going over and over again about how I abandoned my friends, failed my family.” She was careful to omit the part where her mind had strayed into dangerous territory.

Al quietly sat down on the far end of the sofa, hands folded between her knees. She looked shaken and disoriented, eyes darting around the room. Taking several deep breaths, she leveled her gaze at Alicia. “What is happening to you right now? That’s normal. Can you even remember the last time you didn’t have to worry about the dead, or bandits? This is what happens when you spend four years on high alert. You can’t just turn it off.”

“When I came back from the Litzozemli,” Al continued. “I stayed with my parents. I couldn’t handle living on my own. Simple things, like shopping and going out with friends were completely out of my capability. I can’t tell you the last time I dated anyone.” 

“I remember once standing in the casual section of the Macy’s with no idea what I wanted or why I was even there. I saw a soccer T-shirt with red stripes on the sleeves that reminded me of a six-year old boy from the village of Krykhitnyy. His… his… face still haunts my dreams.” Al paused for a moment, eyes screwed shut and lips pressed together in a stiff line in the effort to stay in the present. She pursed her lips and allowed a measured breath to pour out. She opened her eyes, irises finding Alicia’s, before starting again. “I started crying hysterically. My mom had to come get me because I freaked out the other customers and I couldn’t get home. I had a lot of therapy after that. Unfortunately for you, therapists are in short supply at the moment. The truth is, if you hadn’t been out here watching TV already, I would be. These feelings you’re having are typical, and it’s going to be hard before it gets better.”

Alicia burst into tears. It was too much: the kindness, the television, the infirmary, the plumbing. And safety, real, honest to god, safety. She felt Al’s arms slide around her and pull her in tight. She sobbed into Al’s soft, freshly laundered flannel shirt. It smelled like dryer sheets and she cried harder. She felt Al shaking, and realized she was weeping, too. A trembling hand rubbed circles on Alicia’s back. They both stayed like that, the TV bathing them in artificial light, until there were no more tears left.

Alicia sat quietly, her ear pressed to Al’s breastbone, listening to the soft thudding of her heart through thinning fabric. She sniffled thickly. She’d only cried twice since Brokejaw Ranch, once when Nick died and once for her mother. It was like she’d been hoarding her tears for a sunny day, and now the rain had stopped. She wiped her salt stained cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt. The movie had run its course at some point, leaving the menu titles of an image of a soothing wheat field faded to a house up a tall, skinny tree onscreen. She wanted to snuggle in closer to Al, but was afraid it wouldn’t be welcome.

Finally, she lost patience with herself, allowing her head to turn to the side until she was face to face with Al. Al’s glassy eyes were trained on Alicia, with a mild squint, as if she was trying to puzzle out what was happening. Alicia allowed her nose to inch forward to almost touching. Suddenly, she felt like this was completely ridiculous. They had survived biters, robbers, and a month in an eight by nineteen, eighty-seven degree armored metal box on wheels. There were far worse things out there than unrequited lust. Alicia took a deep breath and ventured out into unknown waters, voice filled with hope. “Can I kiss you?”

Al startled and blinked in surprise. Alicia could feel Al’s breath quicken. Al nodded and whispered so low Alicia had to strain to hear it, “Yes.” Before Alicia could respond, Al leaned forward and gently brushed their lips together. Alicia blinked for a moment, processing. Fear flickered in Al’s eyes for a brief moment; was that not what Alicia had wanted? Alicia broke out her fondest smile and leaned in to kiss her back.

She was careful and at first, as if the wrong movement of lips, teeth, or tongue could bring this enterprise crashing down. Despite her best efforts, three and a half years of isolation and heartbreak roared in her ears, enflaming an already well-stoked furnace. Pulling Al so their bodies were flush, her brimstone heart crashed through Al’s matchstick sternum. Alicia’s palm ran up her side, over the ridges of her ribs, under her flannel shirt, detecting slight tremors as Al fought against giggles. So she’s ticklish, Alicia grinned into Al’s neck. Good to know. 

Alicia fumbled slightly with the buttons on Al’s shirt. She pushed through her nervousness and tried to remember what little she had read in a book she’d shoplifted in an act of teenage rebellion from a bookstore about sex with other women. Everyone in the family had assumed that Alicia and Nick would learn everything they needed about how babies were made from that one picture book in her parents’ study and the barely adequate sex ed courses at school. The only effort anyone made in that direction for her alone was the brief discussion of household expectations of sexual behavior that came after Nick had been arrested for prostitution during one of his benders. All of her friends were straight, or at least pretended they were. There had been no one to ask, or answer. Now, Alicia was probably a hundred miles from the nearest book, magazine, or DVD that might help her, and she did not have great confidence in her ability to improvise something so important.

Al must have felt her tense up, because she withdrew her lips and pushed back against Alicia’s shoulders. Alicia quickly obliged. “What?”

Al went to reach to push a strand of hair out of Alicia’s face, but brought her fingers up short before reaching it, curling her them back against her palm. She awkwardly settled her arm at her side, before allowing it to fall away, knuckles grazing the carpet next to the couch. Alarm quickly took over Alicia’s logic circuits, which must have shown on her face.

“Are you sure about this?” Al asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem, well, very unsure.”

Alicia hesitated, fiery shame replacing desire. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Precisely. Or at all.” Alicia stumbled. “After watching my brother flame out, I didn’t have the normal experimentation phase, with anyone. And, I was still pretty young when the world fell to ruin. I’ve had sex with exactly one guy right after my eighteenth birthday, and it wasn’t, in any respect, ‘knock it out of the park’ material. Even that was years ago. I was just trying to remember what to do next, from a few pages in a long lost book.”

Alicia’s felt like her blush stained her cheeks from ear to ear. She hadn’t experienced this level of humiliation in years. She knew that Al was a lot older than her, but it hadn’t occurred to her that this might be a problem until now. She pulled back further until she was sitting on her heels. Al sat up, refusing to allow their proximity to diminish. Her mellow gaze held Alicia’s eyes, and she placed her hands carefully on Alicia’s bony hips, running her thumbs over the skin at the top of Alicia’s fleece pajama bottoms.

“Licia, you don’t have to be nervous. I never had much time for this sort of thing anyway. We’ll figure it out.”

Alicia’s restraint snapped, catapulting her forward into Al’s waiting lips. Shirts and trousers, blankets and underwear, found their way to other furniture, the floor. The only words after that for a time were a series of “can I’s” and “yeses,” with the occasional “please.”

Alicia’s curious fingers lingered, but not too long, on Al’s back, absorbing the texture of scars that were too many, and in the wrong patterns, to have just been picked up travelling the American wasteland of the dead. Something to ask about after fervor cooled. Al distracted her by finding a particularly sensitive spot under her jawline with her tongue, while tracing Alicia’s hipbone with her thumb. 

Al’s inquisitive fingers were practiced; they knew thoroughfares and back alleys, choosing the scenic route over shortcuts. Alicia felt like her own hands and mouth were lost in Yonkers, wherever that was; despite Al’s excellent map. And yet, Al’s patience eventually paid off, as Alicia heard her gasp and watched her eyes slam shut, whispering Alicia’s name into the night.

Alicia hunted around the carpet next to the sofa afterwards for the abandoned comforter to cover their goose-pebbly skin. If her small shivers were any indication, Al was also struggling to adjust to their new climate. Alicia settled the comforter around their shoulders. Al closed her eyes, briefly, muttering a prayer Alicia couldn’t quite make out into the semi-darkness. They lay together, breathing each other’s air, until a pinprick of dawn eased between the blinds.

“Licia, we need to talk-.”

“Really? Now?” Alicia cut her off harshly. A part of her realized she was blundering, badly, but struggled to find her way out of it. “’We need to talk’ is bullshit.’ Why not just say what you planned to?” She came to the cusp of saying something truly cruel, something once said, a person could never come back from. Is there someone else? Are you saving yourself for Mr. Satchel of Letters? Because he’s dead. They’re all dead. Everybody that isn’t here is dead. Al’s eyes bore the hurt, though, as if she had actually said it aloud. Alicia didn’t know whether to apologize or not.

“No,” Al puffed her cheeks. “I just want to be sure about us. We spend our lives in the moment,” she could barely make out the redness creeping up Al’s cheeks. She was fighting a hesitant smile, “And I so badly want this to be something you want for longer than just now.”

“Oh,” Alicia felt like complete trash. In that moment, she got the distinct impression that Al had been wrestling with these feelings for much longer than she had, and thus had time to think about what they meant, as well as the repercussions. Al blinked for a moment, as if something just clicked into place. She laughed faintly.  
“Are you jealous? Is that what this is? I mean, what even gave you the impression that I had ever dated anyone?”

“Those letters. They were important enough to you to die for,” Alicia cupped Al’s cheek in her hand. “And you’re a cameraperson, so they weren’t work. What else could they be?”

“That is still a really big leap.” She turned to kiss Alicia’s palm. “How do you know that they weren’t from my family?”

“Because you said it’s a story. What other kinds of stories are that valuable?”

Al pulled back for a moment, cocking her head slightly as she considered. “You make an interesting point. I can see how you might be confused. If it worries you that much, the letters are upstairs. Go ahead and read them,” she leaned forward, bracing Alicia’s body between her arms and resting her weight on her elbows. “Just not now. I’m not at all ready for you to get up yet.”

They settled back down on the couch, burrowing themselves into the comforter, afghan, and each other. Before long, both were fast asleep. Alicia slept soundly until sometime late morning, waking to the feeling of Al’s lips on her cheek. She whispered into Alicia’s ear, “I’m going to go raid the pantry for some things to cook with. I fully plan on making you a supper that will rock your world.”

“Is that so?” Alicia asked sleepily as Al straightened up. She smiled puckishly. “We’ve been cooking for each other for months, so color me skeptical.”

“That’s because I didn’t have access to real butter, which I have on expert authority comes from the very real cows at Hilltop.”

“All right, then. I will eagerly await this gourmet meal. What time is the table to be set, m’lady?”

“Six sharp.”

“Roger, roger,” Alicia affirmed.

“Did you just make a Star Wars Prequel reference?” 

“It depends. Did you just recognize a Star Wars Prequel Reference?”

“No, that reference clearly came from MacBeth.”

“Only if Shakespeare set it in a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” Alicia shot back as she disappeared upstairs to get some clothes together for a shower. She fought the urge to peek into Al’s bedroom as she walked past, successfully one the way to her bedroom and not so successfully on the way back to the bathroom. She poked her head through the open door of the bedroom Al chose, glancing around the room, searching for the satchel.

The walls were a soft green, and the rest of the room’s colors were muted. Al’s four poster bed with tall turned maple bedposts was unmade, royal yellow knitted blanket crumpled at the foot of the bed and white sheets dangling off the left side. The matching end tables were clear of everything but two milk glass lamps with beige lampshades. There was significant open space in front of an ornate chest of drawers. The only thing that looked like it had been touched was the antique chest at the foot of her bed. The black iron padlock was unlatched, which is where Alicia guessed the bag of letters would be. Despite having permission, she felt weird about rummaging through Al’s things. They’d had so little privacy, that it was a luxury that Alicia was reluctant to take away. She turned back towards the bathroom in favor of the shower.

Her mind went wild during the entirety of her shower, running through all of the things that could be in those letters. She stopped worrying, at this point, that they were from a former lover, more interested in what they could tell her about who Al was before the dead walked. Except for Al’s couple of outbursts, Alicia noted, she’d been the one doing all of the talking, when they hadn’t been in outright silence. Once clean, she stashed her dirty laundry in the hamper in her room and returned to the doorway of Al’s bedroom.

She reminded herself that Al had said she was allowed. Taking a deep breath, she made her way to the chest and opened it. Alicia saw the padded shoulder strap poking out from beneath a thin layer of ragged clothing and Al’s tapes. Someone must have dropped them by at some point while they had been waiting to hear about Morgan. She carefully sifted through Al’s belongings until the bag was free. It was remarkably light. She glanced around the room before deciding to settle on the carpet on the right side of the bed, so that there would be space to spread out.

She picked up the battered messenger bag and untied the jerry rigged buckle strap. The stitching to the left of the zipper had frayed completely, causing it to tear away from the zipper itself. This was how the letters nearly ended up dumped all over in the first place. She put her thumb through the bullet hole in the top right of the bag. Peeking inside, it appeared that the slug had missed all the important contents, tearing through a cheap pencil case before exiting the far side. She shuddered briefly, thinking how close that shot had come to Al’s foot. Alicia made a note to scavenge a new bag for Al next time they were out. If the letters were that important to Al, they needed a better home than this.

The letters themselves had become jumbled in all of the excitement. They were in two sets of handwriting: one in large, gently looping cursive, the other in Al’s small, blocky print. That in and of itself was odd; usually, people only had one side of correspondence. She carefully arranged them in order by date, treating the aging paper with care. With a deep breath, Alicia dug in, and was soon engrossed. She would never have doubted that Al had lived a fascinating life, but it was another thing entirely to be provided with details.

The first letter was from a man named Zinoviy, expressing thankfulness that she was safe after a raid on a Litzozemli village. He indicated that he was sending this letter through his network of cousins, with whom she was hiding out. He expressed desperate hope that she continued to be safe, and told her that he was working to find her safe passage out of the country. 

She responded by asking about what Alicia presumed was a mutual friend, if Zinoviy had heard anything concerning his whereabouts. She also asked if anyone had found her camera or footage. The bigger picture started to form. 

Al and her mentor, the reporter she was filming, had been in the Budnyok region secretly to try to gain a better understanding of the genocide that was still occurring, despite international interest waning. They wanted to help the people and influence more powerful nations to take a stronger stance. Their network was interested in the ratings boost that the scandal would generate. 

One day, they were filming in a village in a hot zone when the Zlonakonyakh came rampaging in on horseback. Al and the reporter got separated. While friends whisked Al away to safety, the reporter wasn’t so lucky. 

The letters from then on out focused around finding her mentor and safe passage out of the country. Zinoviy moved Al around frequently between friends and family, from village to village. Al’s letters took on a progressively more despondent tone, questioning the point of what they’d been doing and pondering whether any good could have come of their endeavors. In the final letter of the first two thirds of the bunch, Al apologized to Zinoviy for her savior complex and not properly thanking him for all of the trouble he went through just to keep her safe, let alone peril he risked when making inquiries about her boss.

Then, correspondence stopped for two months. Once it resumed, the letters contained very formal language in which Al cordially thanked Zinoviy for all of his assistance, including reaching out to both her embassy and the news network, which resulted in her going home. Letters from Zinoviy continued for another month without response, containing mundane details of his life, until they stopped.

Alicia sat with it for a long moment after reading the last one. It was very clear that both Zinoviy and the mentor were just very close friends, bordering on family. It was also brutally obvious that something terrible had happened to Al. Alicia was starving with curiosity, but resolved to wait until Al volunteered additional details.

The smell of hot butter and pungent spices wafting from downstairs brought her back to the present. She glanced out the window to see the light fading as the September sun was swallowed by the tree line, bathing Alexandria in a pumpkin glow. Alicia carefully replaced the letters in the satchel, re-strapped it, and dropped it gently in the chest atop Al’s meager possessions. She still had so many questions.

In the kitchen, Al was working over a hefty Dutch oven, adding a cutting board of chopped onions to whatever she was making. Al had cut up some carrots on a different cutting board, along with thick chunks of meat, all waiting to go in. Alicia hadn’t smelled anything this complex, or as fresh for that matter, in years. Al hadn’t noticed her yet. She smiled and carefully walked up behind Al, whispering “Hey,” so Al wouldn’t be alarmed. 

Al looked over her shoulder and returned the smile, “Hey, right back.” Alicia slid her arms around Al’s waste and pressed her cheek into Al’s back. She took a deep breath in and closed her eyes. Al relaxed into her arms, while sliding the carrots and meat into the pot.

“Give me a minute,” Al said, “and I am all yours. I need to get this going and, then, I can give you my undivided attention while this cooks.”

Alicia backed off, leaning against the opposing kitchen counter, folding her arms and crossing her legs. She wasn’t sure what to say. Her eyes kept wandering to Al’s back, despite all efforts to focus them elsewhere. Al finished by pouring in a mason jar of broth, followed by putting on the lid and reducing the gas flame to simmer.

She turned back to Alicia and met Alicia’s eyes. She cocked her head for a moment, brow furrowed. Crossing her own arms in front of her chest, she took a deep breath and nodded. “You read the letters.”

“Yes.”

“You have questions.”

“None that need to be answered right now. I get that you went through some shit, and I guess all I really want to say is that you can tell me. Whenever you’re ready. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not dying to know, but my Mom explained to me that people talking about things before they’re ready fucks them up, and you shouldn’t have to risk that just to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Thank you. I will tell you, someday, I promise. I think we just need to focus on settling in and dealing with what’s happened to us in the outbreak before I go digging this deep. That ok?”

“Of course. What are you making?” Alicia quickly changed the topic to something less fraught with emotional landmines.

“It’s a variant on an Ethiopian dish I learned from a friend I made when I was visiting Harar on vacation,” Al smiled broadly, the corners of her eyes lightly crinkling. “Apparently there was an African grocer that the Alexandrians hit up for supplies and they grabbed some spices that no one here knows how to use. You and I are going to be eating like queens.”

Alicia’s heart caught in her throat. In that moment, with the waning sunlight saturating her with a vermilion glow and the simple joy of cooking shining on her face, Al had never looked more beautiful. Alicia stepped forward and pulled Al in for a gentle kiss. Al carefully pinned Alicia against the counter with her body, burying her fingers in Alicia’s damp hair.

This was everything Alicia longed for while out on the barren trail. She’d found a home, and a person to share it with. Hope stubbornly burrowed into Alicia’s weary heart. Maybe, if the dead and the living could just stay outside, they could make things wonderful in here.


	5. New Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so this is the new Chapter 5, because I realized that the time jump was the start of a new story, namely the sequel. So, I shelved that (I'm going to do it eventually, just not now), and I continued with where we left off of chapter 4. Thanks everyone for being patient while I found my footing with this one. Thanks everyone for bearing with me.

Denise was in the infirmary when Alicia and Al made their way over to check on Morgan, bearing a platter of basboosas for anyone sitting vigil with Morgan.  The oil lamps were dim, and Denise sat alone, reading a thick tome in a blue plastic classroom chair next to Morgan’s bed. Someone had set him up with a CPAP, mitigating his snoring.  Denise licked her finger and pinched the next page between her fingers to turn it, before grabbing a brown leather bookmark to stick in her place. She looked up with a smile. “Here to check on Morgan?”

Alicia nodded.  “Reading up on spinal surgeries or infections?”

“Catching up on my 19th century whaling.”  She flashed the cover of Moby Dick. “There comes a point in the day when I still want to feel helpful, but can’t really do any more work.  If Tara’s busy helping to keep this place running, I come sit with my patients.”

“You’re reading that on purpose?” Al asked.

“Medical textbooks make everything else feel like a clay pigeon.  Their content is so dense it’s gravity practically collapses in on itself.  I read nothing but bodice rippers and the bare minimum of clinical research for the first year after I finished school.”

Alicia shrugged.  “I loved Moby Dick when we read it in English.  The description was vivid, if a bit lengthy.”

Al shook her head.  She smiled and set the basboosas down, snagging a soft, syrupy square cake and taking a large bite.  Both Alicia and Denise followed suit. Denise fastidiously wiped the crumbs from the corner of her mouth with a white kerchief from her pocket.  She swallowed the cake thickly. “What is this, Al? It’s delicious.”

“Basboosas,” she said as she sat down on a bed in a jerky motion, sliding back until her legs were dangling off of the floor.  “I picked up the recipe from a friend while on assignment in the Sudan.”

“On assignment?” Denise cocked her head.

Al’s expression flattened, and her voice took on a mechanical quality.  “Yeah, I was a photojournalist. I did work in the Sudan and Litzozemli”

Denise’s eyes squinted subtly as she examined Al more carefully, giving an appreciative nod.  “Impressive. Those places have been in total chaos for years.”

“Yep,” Al said.  Alicia could tell that, while Al had wanted to share her love for the Sudan, particularly its cuisine, with both of them, she wasn’t remotely prepared to talk about her work with a virtual stranger.  Her hands started to tremble faintly. With the hopes of stopping this tell, she folded her arms over her chest, clutching tightly at her ribcage. Taking a deep breath, she blinked and tried to find her voice.

Alicia smiled broadly.  “Yeah, she’s working on a documentary of the apocalypse, conducting interviews of everyone we meet.  It’s pretty cool. She’s got some really great footage of some amazing people.”

Denise opened her mouth, presumably to inquire further, before taking in Al’s body language and deciding against it.  She set her jaw and rose out of her chair, setting her book on the rustic end table made of reclaimed wood next to Morgan’s head.  “These cakes are delicious, but they’re not complete without something to drink. We have a nice hard cider in the basement that should match this perfectly.”

The surgeon turned psychiatrist turned surgeon disappeared through a darkened doorway in the back of the clinic.  Alicia watched her go, silently, appreciating Denise’s sensitivity. She turned back to Al, who was staring off into nothing.  Al was listing off something Alicia couldn’t quite hear underneath her breath, slowly relaxing the further down the list she got.  Al shook her head, “This is why I don’t talk to people.”

“How did you get through so many interviews?” Alicia asked.

“Honestly, I do better carrying other people’s stories.  My own’s a hot coal that burns my palms every time I try to handle it.”

Alicia glanced around the room to ensure privacy: they hadn’t really talked about how they were going to publicly handle their fledgling relationship.  She slowly approached Al, until Alicia was standing in front of her, capturing Al’s gaze and keeping it. “Can I hold you?”

“Yeah,” Al said quietly.

Alicia slid her arms around Al’s waist and tucked her head underneath Al’s chin, pressing her ear to the journalist’s shoulder.  She felt a stream of air pass over her other ear as Al sighed. “I think I haven’t done a good job of telling you about my time in Litzozemli.  For all the terrible things that happened to me and the people I came to love, there were wonderful things, too.” 

“I bought Vitalya completely out of his pottery to fill my house when I went home.  I dare you to find better dumplings that was in Luba’s varenyky. Countless villagers welcomed me into their homes to talk and share a meal, even at great risk for political retribution.   Being in my twenties, and still naive, I thought I could save them. I thought if I just captured everything on film and showed the world, someone would actually do something. It was so stupid.”

“That’s not stupid,” Alicia whispered. “It’s crazy-brave.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“They’re not,” Alicia grazed her fingers along the back of Al’s neck in soothing strokes.   “But it’s never stupid to want to save people with the only tools we have.”

“You can’t tell me you still think that, after all you’ve been through.”

“You’re right, in that sometimes you have to know when you’re beat, but sometimes, it’s admirable to keep trying anyway.  Travis would have kept trying. My brother, too.”

“Travis?  Really?”

“These days, he’s the good voice whispering in my ear.  Reminding me that we have to be worth salvaging. It’s what told me Morgan could be saved, even though he looked six inches from dying from the minute we loaded him up.”

Alicia heard footsteps coming from the corridor.  Denise must be back with the cider. Pulling away slowly, she reached up and cupped Al’s cheeks, swiping the tears out of the corner of Al’s eyes with her thumbs before Denise could see.  The doctor appeared in the doorway with a corked green bottle and three bark-patterned clay cups.

The cups went onto Denise’s desk, and she popped the cork with a quick  _ thip _ .  The tart-smelling amber liquid splashed into the first cup, foam climbing to the top, before Denise moved on to the next.  She extended cups to both Al and Alicia, and snatched hers up off of the desktop.

“A toast,” Denise grinned.  “To welcome you both to Alexandria.”

“To a new home.”  Al raised her cup high.

“To home,” both Alicia and Denise intoned, raising their own respectively.

Alicia took a long pull off of the cider.  It was delicious. The flavor was deep and dry, with slight hints of clover and cherry.  This cider was, hands down, the best alcoholic beverage she’d ever drank. Alicia sought out Al’s face, to gauge her feelings.  Al’s eyebrows were sky high and her mouth a parabola of approval.

“Tara and I got stir-crazy last winter and we had a lot of leftover apples.  We’ve got more than a hundred bottles chilling in the cellar with the mead.”

“Yeah, well, may the apple harvest be bountiful this year and the coming winter boring.”  Alicia grinned broadly. They all took another drink. Alicia closed her eyes and savored the moment.  She couldn’t even remember a time of peace like this, where it was perfectly safe to relax and have a drink with a new friend.  Even the baseball stadium had an element of risk about it because it was still in the early stages of formation.

Al’s shaking slowly subsided and the glassiness left her eyes.  She turned to Denise with a slick smile. “So, what’s it like being the only doctor in a community this size?  How much time did you spend out there before you found here?”

Sighing heavily, Denise stared at the flickering oil lamp reflecting off of the contents of her cup.    “I was with this community when society collapsed. I’ve never been out in the world on my own for longer than an hour or two, except the couple of instances in which Alexandria fell to first the Wolves and then the Saviors.  It means that I am uniquely underqualified to survive out in the wild. But it’s better being the doctor in here, even though I spend most of the time terrified I’m going to kill someone, than a scavenger out there. I’m a psychiatrist, which means that I’m winging it most of the time, going off a growing collection of those painfully dense medical textbooks I was complaining about.  I’m the best we’ve got, though, and I guess that counts for something.”

Alicia coughed, nostrils flaring  slightly. “That’s bold of you to step up to the plate,” Al said, admiration tingeing her voice.

“That’s kind of you to say, but I’m really one of the bigger cowards around here-”

Tara shouldered open the door, her arms full of boxes of bandages, and a bowl of chopped lettuce.  She dropped her armload onto the nearest empty cot, before snatching the bowl and walking over to a massive fifty-five gallon glass aquarium on the far side of the room.  She plucked the latch, opened a hatch, and dumped the lettuce through. A small yellow and lime green striped turtle with red highlights and a deep green shell crawled towards the food.

“I believe the phrase you’re looking for is, ‘Thank you, Tara, for feeding Fluffy.”

“His name is  _ not _ Fluffy.  It’s Grover Cleveland,” Denise shot Tara a dangerous look.  Alicia abruptly realized that they’d inadvertently wandered into the middle of an argument.  Al met Alicia’s eyes, her expression screaming,  _ “Aw, Hell.” _

Alicia flicked her irises in the direction of the door.  Al responded with a barely perceptible nod. Both rose, Al leaving the plate of cakes on a spare chair.  Tara and Denise were so focused on each other, that they didn’t even notice the two taking flight.

“Something tells me that was about more than just Grover.”

“Yep.”

Al arched her eyebrows and puffed her cheeks, expelling the air into the night.  She scrubbed the back of her neck where Alicia’s fingers had been with her left hand.  “So, you must think all I do is cry.”

“No,” Alicia reached out and captured Al’s other hand in her own, interlocking their fingers.  She tried to channel her mother for a moment. “I think we’ve tried to have several super-serious conversations about you’re past that you might not be ready to have.  That’s ok. Tears come and go. Doesn’t make you weak.”

“Still, it would be nice to talk about something less emotionally charged for a change.”

“Fantastic,” Alicia smiled broadly.  “What do normal people not trapped in a walker wasteland talk about?”

Al laughed under her breath.  “The weather. Favorite books and movies.  Local sports teams.” 

“It’s colder and wetter than California with a definite chance of ‘fuck this humidity.’   _Bleak House_ and _Citizen Kane._  And I think I saw one of the Atlanta Falcons shambling by the SWAT truck couple of days back, which is where my Rams were playing when everything crumbled.”

“Oh my god, I really thought I imagined that.”

“Nope.  That was absolutely Gianluigi Hook back there.  We are definitely playing ‘I Spy’ next road trip.  Now, I believe, it’s your turn.” Alicia stopped in the middle of a green space, her head turned up to the sky.  Clumps of grass clippings occupied the turf at their feet, and Alicia kicked a few out of the way to clear a spot to sit.  She sat abruptly, pulling Al down with her, and they fell in a heap.

“Smooth,” Al said with a smirk.  She settled into Alicia’s arms, curling up against Alicia’s ribcage.  “The weather here is bullshit, especially in the summer. Everytime I end up in this part of the country, I feel like I need a snorkel whenever I leave the house.   _ The Things They Carried _ and  _ The Philadelphia Fire _ .  I don’t like team sports much.  Lance Armstrong was my hero until the doping scandal.  I did end up watching a ton of Red Sox games with my baby sister Ruthie, because they were her very favorite, and we were close.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

Al looked to the North Star, staring at it intently.  “No, she was deployed in the Navy, off on some boat somewhere.  Even if she survived the initial outbreak, they’d have to fuel up and get provisions sometime, so she’s probably as dead as everyone else.”

Alicia stayed silent.  Her heart broke, because they all knew what it was like to lose.  But the added uncertainty must be weighty. For all they knew, her boat survived, doomed to wander from port to port.  However, the truth was that the likelihood that Al would ever see Ruthie again was infinitely slim, and Alicia suspected that Al had expended hope.  She tightened her arms around Al, placing a soft kiss just above her right ear.

The Milky Way galaxy’s billowy gas clouds and shimmering stars stretched out from sheet metal wall to sheet metal wall in the yawning heavens.  There was no sign of the moon in the vast expanse. The occasional bat swooped down to capture a buzzing insect, before retreating to the sky. A dog barked from across the compound, before being silenced with a yell from Daryl.  A hint of the scent of fresh-mown grass still clung to the lawn beneath them, filling Alycia’s nose with the heady scent of tall fescue, creeping charlie, and clover. 

Kicking off her shoes, Alicia wiggled her toes in the cool green blades, appreciating the pillowy softness.  Al remained guarded, glancing around at their surroundings, looking for a rogue walker or bandit. Alicia stroked Al’s bicep gently with her thumb.  Al caressed Alicia’s knee.

“Do you think we’ll ever get back to space?” Al mused.

Alicia considered for a moment.  “I hope so. Not likely for a very long time, but I’d like to think that we could walk among the stars someday, maybe find other worlds.  We’ve never been a species content to sit where we’re at.”

Al slid a hand behind Alicia’s neck and pulled her in for a warm kiss.  Their lips were like waves meeting, at first gentle laps on a sandy shore, turning to ocean spray dashing against the rocks.  Fingers raked through hair, gripping tightly, pulling gently, then furrowing fingers, separating strands of hair. It was impossible to be close enough.  Al nimbly twisted in Alicia’s arms, and before she knew it, she was on her back. Alicia melted into well-manicured weeds, her nose grazing a stray yellow dandelion as she turned her chin to allow Al access to the skin behind her ear.

They both startled dramatically as the gate screeched open.  Al shot up, on her feet almost instantaneously, followed rapidly by Alicia.  The two set off for the front gate at a jog. As they arrived, the incoming group had passed through the gate, and it was closing behind them.  A small cluster of people Alicia didn’t recognise was standing in Alexandria’s entryway, looking around eyes wide and mouths gaping. Scott and Rosita stepped forward to talk to a guard, before returning to the bedazzled group, while the guard trotted off in the direction of Rick’s home.

Alicia winced, as she realized she’d taken off after her shoes and torn up the soles of her feet.  The adrenaline counteracted her pain, but now that the potential for danger was over, searing pain.  She hobbled along with Al in tow, towards the newcomers. 

One woman stood defensively in the front, meeting gaze for gaze.  She was striking, all skin and bone, with clothes that were just big enough to betray the fact that they didn’t quite fit.  Her breastbone bore an intricately detailed tattoo of Indian design that stretched up her throat, ending at her chin. Tanzanite eyes reflecting the torchlight burned at everyone she looked at.  Her pale khaki complection marked her as somewhere near Alicia’s age, but her charisma made her appear older. An empty quiver rested at her hip. She glanced at Alicia’s naked, bleeding feet and arched an eyebrow.

“You are one dedicated welcoming committee.”

“No, um, well, no,”  Alicia stammered. “We just got here ourselves.  We were curious about what was going on so late.”

“Apparently too curious for the good of your feet,” Al said as she narrowed her eyes at the group’s leader.  At the leader’s side, a twenty-something woman, standing in a defensive crouch with pale ochre skin and wary dark eyes, levelled a glare at Alicia.  A full quiver of arrows was slung over her shoulder, but evidently her bow had been taken. To her right, a thin woman with long, tightly curled hair, sepia skin and a bony face supported a wounded woman, of the same height, build, and skin color, bearing a flattop haircut.  A pale, pudgy man with a thick beard and thinning hair, wearing a threadbare blazer, rounded them out. 

The leader completely ignored Al and the woman next to her.  A cautious grin formed, focus remaining on Alicia. “I’m Magna, this is Connie, Kelly, Yumiko, and Luke.”

Rick trotted up to the band, coming to a stop in front of Magna.  “Welcome. I’ve been told that you were pre-vetted by Scott nd Rosita, which means you get to spend the night as our guests, instead of in the cells.  We can conduct interviews in the morning. All I ask is that you hand over your arrows and any remaining weaponry you brought in. We will issue you knives, so as to not leave you completely defenseless, in the event of a walker breech.  Any questions?”

“Walker.  Is that what you all call the stinkers?” Magna asked.  Connie squinted in the dark, with a laser focus on Rick’s lips in the torchlight.

“Yes,” Rick replied.

“Ok, then.  Walker it is.”  Magna extended her hand.  Rick shook. “Is there any chance we could use supplies to patch up my girl Kelly here?”

“Infirmary’s over there.  Our doctor can take a look at her.  ‘Licia, Al, do you think you could show them the way?  And, look, I know we just got you both settled, but is there any chance you’d be willing to put the rest up for the night?  You’ve got one of the bigger places and it’s on the late side to go knocking.”

“Absolutely,” Alicia said, turning towards the clinic and beckoning for the rest to follow, as Rosita passed her a torch.  Al failed to hide her surly look. She glanced at the others, coming to the realization that no one else was going to step up to help Connie with Kelly.  Stepping into the center of the small pack, she leaned in and hooked Kelly’s free arm around her neck. Connie blinked in surprise, whether it was the offer of any help at all, or that it came from someone who clearly did not like them, was anybody’s guess.  They moved in tense silence, the new group acutely aware that they were among strangers.

The lamps in the infirmary had been doused, but a single small red LED light marked the building.  Tara was snoozing underneath her jacket in a rocking chair, with her bare feet up on a small wicker ottoman.  Alicia smiled to herself. At least they had a couch for whenever she was in the dog house, but that would be occupied by fresh arrivals.  Judging from Al’s facial expression, she may as well take the porch swing next to Tara. Did Al know these people from another lifetime?

Tara startled so fiercely that she upended the chair and knocked the ottoman to the side.  It rolled lazily to the far side of the porch, coming to rest against an upside-down pickle tub holding a half-finished game of checkers.  She looked around wildly at the newcomers, her hand searching her belt for her knife, before noticing Alicia and Al amongst the strangers.

“Could you go wake Denise?” Al asked.  “These are new folks, and they’ve got wounded.”

“Of course.”  Tara turned and disappeared into the clinic.  Along the way, she lit one of the main oil lamps so that people could start coming inside.

Al caught Connie’s attention and they both started helping Kelly up the stairs, one halting step at a time.  Tara reappeared with some bandages, tape, and a small cake of soap for Alicia, who accepted them graciously. Sidling up to Kelly, she maneuvered herself to take over.  Al spun slowly and walked back down the stairs, hands shoved into her pockets.

Alicia tugged on Al’s sleeve.  “We should probably go get the place prepped.  We weren’t expecting company when we left this evening.”

Al huffed and struck out for their home.  Alicia closed her eyes so that no one could see her rolling them.  She remained silent until they were about fifty feet from the porch.  “What is your problem?”

“My problem?”

“Cut the crap.  You may have helped, but you made it painfully obvious that you didn’t want to.”

“I don’t know.  Something about Magda doesn’t seem right.  I’ve got a good gut for these sorts of things; call it my journalistic instinct.  The rest of them seem fine, but I don’t trust her.”

“Look.  We don’t have time to debate.  They could be here at any moment, and, as far as I’m concerned, they’re welcome.  End of discussion.”

“You brought it up and now you don’t want to talk?!”

Alicia took a deep breath and forcefully fluffed one of the pillows from the living room couch.  Grabbing the rest of the pillows in the room, she artfully arranged them on the furniture, while Al looked on with pinched eyebrows and arms folded tightly across her chest.  “I thought that maybe we could talk this out like reasonable people before our guests get here, but clearly not, so it will have to wait. Take this end,” she said as she extended two adjacent corners of the afghan, so that they could fold it together.

Al’s anger and hurt were radiation from a nuclear reactor.  She walked purposefully over and accepted the corners of the blanket,  Every movement was filled with bruising tension. Al backed up until the edges were taut, then meeting the corners in concert with Alicia before turning the blanket the opposite way.  It twisted in the middle. Tightening her grip on the corners until her knuckles turned white, she swiveled it the other way, then stepped forward to meet Alicia, matching the corners and handing them back.  Alicia draped the folded blanket over the back of the couch. Now that the living room was arranged, Al fled to the back porch.

Sighing heavily, Alicia sat down in the ugly chair.  She settled her elbows atop her knees and sank her face into open hands.   _ Mom, I don’t know how to do this.  You were supposed to be here to teach me how to love and fight, and now I’ve got no one.  I know what I said was shitty, but I don’t know what to do now. Gods, what do I do? _

Rather than ruminate, she took the dressings and soap to the bathroom to clean and dress her feet.  The grandfather clock in the next room ticked loudly. Al must have wound it sometime during the day.  While attending to her feet, she was roused by a firm knock on the door. Shoulders slumping, Alicia finished pulling on her sock after securing the last of the gauze to the ball of her foot, before answering it.  Magda waited patiently with her crew on the other side of the screen door. Alicia stepped aside and beckoned for them to enter.

Alicia noted that a stack of blankets and an inflatable mattress had materialized on the couch.  It would have appeared that Al retrieved them from upstairs at some point, although Alicia wasn’t sure how she missed it.  The group filed in, ogling the tidy house, as much as they had at the gate of the community. 

“Help yourself,” Alicia gestured towards the bedding.  They hesitantly approached the clean bedding and the furniture, clearly unable to accept that these things were real and existed in the world now.  Luke was the first to take a powder blue woolen blanket off of the stack and a periwinkle throw pillow from the uncomfortable chair. His threadbare sportcoat crumpled in a pile on the floor as he set about arranging his bedding.  Before the rest could take their own, the front doorbell buzzed. Alicia went to the door again, to be met by Carol, carrying two large plastic tubs. 

“These are some clothes from storage.  There should be something that fits everyone.  If not, send someone by and I’ll look for a scarcer size,” Carol said.

Alicia accepted the tubs, and put them in the corner next to the door.  Looking back to the newcomers, incredulous eyes locked in on the tubs. Alicia smiled, “This place has two bathrooms: upstairs with a bath/shower and downstairs with just a shower.  I’ll leave it to you guys to work out who gets to go in what order.”

“You have indoor plumbing?” Magda asked, running her thumb and forefinger along her bottom lip.  Her feet were in a wide stance and the other hand was on her hip, clenched in a fist. Alicia grinned.

Yumiko purposely ignored Magda and Alicia and unceremoniously rushed the tubs, pulling the top bin off of the other, flipping the lid, and digging through the items of clothing.  Magda and Luke followed suit, with Luke clinging to the blanket as if he expected it to disappear at any moment. For a moment, he looked like the post-apocalyptic fusion of Linus and Pigpen.

The clock on the wall quietly  _ bonged _ .  Alicia turned away, allowing them to get settled in with privacy.  She wandered out to the back porch. It was empty upon arrival, Al having moved on to somewhere else.  Alicia’s heart wilted. Heading back inside, she trudged up the stairs.

Darkness saturated the hallway and most of the rooms.  A sliver of light beamed out from Al’s half-closed door.  Alicia set herself, clenching her fists as tears pricked the corners of her eyes, preparing to walk past to get ot her own room.  When had she become so emotional?

As she strode by, a voice called out softly, “Come to bed?”

Alicia froze.  She poked her head in the door.  “I figured I was sleeping on the porch swing.”

The neckline of Al’s shirt was threaded through the fingers of her left hand as she lay on that half of her body, twisting to look over her shoulder at Alicia.  “While that is tempting, I don’t want that to be what we do every time we fight.”

“I don’t even know what we’re fighting about,” Alicia complained.

“Just get in here and we can work it out in the morning.”

Alicia fought every ounce of instinct not to roll her eyes.  Instead, she shed her jacket and limped over to the empty half of the bed.  Pulling back the blankts, she slid between the covers, curling up facing a large fake indoor tree, its thin trunk punching out of a grey bricked pot into a small ball of greenery at the top.  She felt Al shift, and warm arms wrap around her. Al buried her nose into the base of Alicia’s neck. Alicia let out a jagged exhalation. This could be mended. They were just two very broken people trying to find their footing, if not today, then tomorrow.

  
  



End file.
